LOWELL -- About 100 students and more than a dozen faculty and staff will be given a skin test for tuberculosis this week and next week since a Lowell High School student was diagnosed with the disease.

Health Director Frank Singleton said only students and staff who were in close contact with the student, who will not be identified, will be given the skin tests, which show whether a person has ever been exposed to bacteria that cause the disease.

Even if a skin test is positive, it does not indicate that a person has the disease. It merely indicates that he has been exposed to it at some point in his life, Singleton said.

"Just because you get the bacteria in your body doesn't mean you'll come down with the active disease," Singleton said.

There are typically between 200 and 250 cases of Tuberculosis identified in Massachusetts each year, and Singleton said Lowell averages about 8 to 10 cases per year, mostly among older, foreign-born residents.

Superintendent of Schools Jean Franco said a letter was sent home notifying all students and parents.

"There isn't any imminent danger, but we want people to be aware," Franco said.

Singleton declined to say which grade the infected student is in, but said the student was showing symptoms several weeks ago before being diagnosed. The student is no longer in school and is being treated at the Lowell General Hospital tuberculosis clinic.

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Any students or staff who test positive for exposure to the tuberculosis bacteria will be referred to the LGH tuberculosis clinic for monitoring or free treatment, if necessary.

"Tuberculosis is a treatable disease with antibiotics and is not easily contracted," Singleton said.

According to a report published by the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Lowell is one of 25 "high-risk" communities for tuberculosis in the state.

There were 12 cases in Lowell in 2009, 4 in 2010; 14 in 2011 and 10 in both 2012 and 2013, according to the report.

Tuberculosis diagnoses involving students have been more rare, but have occurred several times in recent years in Lowell, Chelmsford and Dracut.

About 200 students were tested in Chelmsford after a student was diagnosed in 2007, but only two of them tested positive for exposure, and no one came down with the disease. A similar number of students were tested at Lowell High School when a student was diagnosed in 2005.

In 2004, a student at the St. Louis School was diagnosed, as was a student in Dracut. In Dracut, 259 students and staff were given the skin test following the 2004 diagnoses, and three of them tested positive for exposure but never got the disease.

Singleton said the Lowell Health Department is working with schools and the state Department of Public Health to monitor the situation, and that students and staff will be given a skin test again at the beginning of next school year, since exposure to the bacteria can take up to six weeks to appear in tests.

"We'll have to test them again when they come back to school in August," Singleton said. "If they got exposed four weeks ago, their test results might still be negative."

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